Light from out the lurid sea
by Sionnain
Summary: Scott’s dreams are full of colors he barely remembers. Astonishing XMen, ScottXEmma. Spoilers for Issue 14.


**Light from out the lurid sea**

_Resignedly beneath the sky  
The melancholy waters lie._

Scott once read that most people dream in black and white. His dreams are always awash in red and pink, and maybe that's the same thing. Though he could have sworn that when he was a child, colors were as vivid in dreamscapes as they were in waking life, and black and white were reserved for old movies his mom sometimes watched on Sundays. 

There's something strange, then, about what he's seeing now. Things are in color and yet everything is faded, like photographs left too long in a frame in some sunny spot. Colors that his mind has forgotten, dull remnants of things once bright and vivid.

"I'm just wondering why you did it, Emma."

Jean's voice is like the colors around him; something he once knew well, faded into a sensory memory too tinny and dull to be real. 

"Darling, because I had to. He had to know. He's of no use to anyone if he's weak."

In contrast, Emma's voice is like the color red. He knows that shade well, knows every nuance and blend the color can take. Likewise, he knows the dips and contours of her voice, knows when her throaty purr is forced and when it's real.

They're sitting at a table drinking coffee, his dead wife and his girlfriend, beneath a window with curtains of faded white. Neither Emma nor Jean pay him any mind, merely sip coffee from blue (blue!) mugs, drumming their fingers on the cherry-wood table.

Jean's hair spills in a red wave over her shoulders. That, he remembers. Emma's hair, in contrast, is a white so burning he has to look away. Why does everything remind him of fire?

"Everyone underestimates Scott," Jean says sadly. Scott concentrates on her as she speaks, noting the features of her face are soft and only vaguely defined. In contrast, Emma's features are stark and strong, from the curve of her chin to the sooty-black of her spiky lashes.

"Yes, well. Sometimes that can be an advantage. The problem is, of course, that Scott underestimates himself and always has." Emma sips her coffee, and Jean stares out of the window.

Scott has no idea why he's dreaming about this. If he's going to dream about Emma and Jean, he can think of a thousand different scenarios more entertaining than _this_, and if it's a nightmare he's after—well, there are lot of those scenarios he could think up, too.

"Darling," Emma purrs, and turns to look at him. "Who says this is a dream?"

Jean stands up slowly and turns to him. "Scott?" she breathes, and her body begins to glow. "Scott…"

Scott watches as she turns into fire, as her body arcs and levitates off the ground, as the wings spread out behind her. For the first time, he sees the orange in the flames.

"Scott."

He jerks around, suddenly, though his limbs are still dream-heavy and it feels like he's wading through water. Emma's standing on the night-darkened beach, and behind her, he can hear the roar of the ocean.

Her hair blows in her face, and for a moment she looks lost, alone. "I didn't—I don't want you to think I didn't love you," she says, biting her lip. "I could have made it worse."

As far as apologies go, it's probably one of the worst he's heard from her, and that's saying a lot. Scott doesn't understand why he can't see the ocean. It's _there_, obviously, so why can't he see it?

"You never could see everything," Emma says with a smile. Her voice sounds sad. "I'm never just me. There's always something else. For a little while, I wished there wasn't. I'm sorry."

Scott wants to talk, but he can't. Every time he tries to speak, his voice strangles like a scream in his throat.

Emma is suddenly standing right in front of him, her face very close to his. Her eyes are light blue like the sky just after dawn, before the sun burns the color into something darker. She presses her mouth to his. It's a familiar sensation; her lips soft and warm; yielding. "I had to. You'll never forgive me, will you?"

She moves away before he can reach for her, though he's not sure what he'd do. In his mind he remembers her beneath him in bed, remembers her nails in his back. Then he remembers her in that very last moment, and his hands clench into fists. He'd give up seeing color, maybe, to have his powers back in that moment, to have it be _real_.

"Could you do it? You couldn't before, I don't think. Now, maybe you could. You were a good lover, Scott. We'll see what type of enemy you make. If you survive."

Emma steps back until she's completely enshrouded in waiting darkness. Jean left him awash in flames, and Emma's swallowed by shadows. Fitting, in a way.

The sound of the sea comes closer now, and he can feel a chill sting his skin, as if the water is swirling now around his feet. It's going to drown him if he's not careful.

Scott knows how to survive. He'll wake up eventually, and he'll find Emma. And he won't forget, this time, what she really is. Scott takes a deep breath and strides forward, into the waiting dark, into the cold.


End file.
